Many types of brick and mortar stores provide merchandise trade-in programs. Through such programs, a customer can bring a physical item, such as a video game, for instance, into a participating store and receive a store credit in exchange for the item. The store credit can then be used to immediately purchase other items in the store. Trade-in programs are popular with customers when offered through brick and mortar stores in part because customers can immediately receive payment in exchange for their items and immediately use the received payment to purchase other items.
Some online stores also provide trade-in programs. Customers of online trade-in programs typically ship items to be traded-in to an online merchant. When the online merchant receives the items, the merchant inspects the items and issues a payment to the customer based upon the actual condition of the items. Online trade-in programs do not provide advance payment to customers due to the risk of loss that might be incurred if a payment is made to a customer for an item that is never shipped to the merchant. The sometime significant delay in receiving payment for items traded-in through online trade-in programs can, however, be frustrating to the users of such programs and discourage the use of online trade-in programs.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the disclosure made herein is presented.